This post is part of a series, Reading Time at HSNY, written by our head librarian, Miranda Marraccini.

Regular readers of this column probably know all about our library at the Horological Society of New York (HSNY), which we officially opened only two years ago. We unveiled a gilded sign! We cut a ribbon with giant scissors! It was a big deal. But did you know that HSNY has always had a library? Early members viewed books as essential to their work and made the book collection a priority from the start. As with watchmaking, library practices of the 19th century have a lot in common with those of today.

HSNY was founded in March 1866 by a group of German immigrants. Known as the Deutscher Uhrmacher Verein (German Watchmakers’ Society), it included only working watchmakers. Members paid into a fund that would support them if they were unable to work.

A history written in 1916 reports that the Society had a “technical library” within a few years of its founding. Image 1 shows an early library stamp, in blue, that marks a book called “The Watchmakers’ Library” as property of the New Yorker Urmacher Verein–a name we used from 1887 until around 1916. The German-style tulip ornament and oval shape lend the stamp a bit of decorative flair.

In our archives, a card printed around 1887 in German mentions that the Society keeps a “specialized library…open at no charge to all members…one of the most complete in the German language. It also contains almost all the more recently published technical literature in the English language and is being added to regularly” (images 2 and 3).

Since most members still spoke German as a primary language at this time, and all meetings were conducted in German, the Society took pains to collect books that would be helpful and readable. But the reference on this card to recent literature in English suggests that things were starting to change. By 1930, English was the primary language of the newly rebranded Horological Society of New York.

Other, sporadic documentation shows the library continued to grow and evolve in the following decades: by 1891, HSNY boasted $365 in books and periodicals, equivalent to around $12,000 or $13,000 in today’s money. In 1901 a member donated a collection of 215 technical books.

Below are lists of books in our library from the 1940s (image 4) and the 1960s (image 5). We have multiple copies of these lists in our archives, which were frequently added to and annotated. Sometimes a book was marked as missing or damaged or restricted from circulation because of its delicate condition.

In the mid-20th century, HSNY’s books were mostly technical. Some example titles from these lists are: Moritz Immisch, “Prize Essay on the Balance Spring” (1872); R. H. Playtner, “An Analysis of the Lever Escapement” (1895); and Walter Kleinlein, “Rules and Practice for Adjusting Watches” (1920). Later on, the library added more modern titles including B. Humbert, “The Chronograph, its Mechanism and Repair (1953), and multiple books about newer technologies including F. Hope-Jones, “Electrical Timekeeping” (1949).

During most of HSNY’s history, until the last few years, the position of librarian was filled by a volunteer member. Although we have no record of how the librarian chose new books or how they organized the collection, a notice in 1955 bragged about having “library of congress index cards,” a system for cataloging we still use today (although we now use an online catalog rather than physical cards).

Where were the books stored? The library was never stationary–it moved through different rented rooms, mostly in hotels, just as the meeting location for the Society changed every year or two. HSNY always strived for convenience for members, which meant meeting them where they worked. Some locations were in lower Manhattan and later in Midtown as the center of the jewelry trade shifted from Maiden Lane to 47th Street. The library was open for use only on days when members were having a meeting, which was once a month. Members could check out books, except during the summer.

You can see the evidence for the library’s continued relevance to members in our monthly newsletter, “The Horologist’s Loupe.” This HSNY publication has been going since 1938 and is still sent out every month, although now by email. (You can access all past issues on our website.) A quotation from the May 1966 edition of “The Horologist’s Loupe” intones: “This is YOUR library and it is here to help you with any problems.” Images 6 and 7, from the October 1964 and March 1968 issues respectively, remind readers of both the “precious” and “important” nature of the library and of its rules.

Returning library books was a problem from the start. Even I, as a librarian, struggle with this today–sorry, New York Public Library, I am a serial offender! In “The Horologist’s Loupe,” almost every issue urges members to return library materials. For example, in May 1964: “Our Librarian would like to remind all members who borrowed books that these have to be returned at the following meeting. A fine of 25 cents to $1.00 will be charged for books kept longer than 1 month, depending on the type and age of the book…[Books] are for your benefit kept in the safe, but readily available on request.”

We no longer keep our books in a safe, although I can assure you they are safe. More excitingly, we have just begun lending out books again to HSNY members! If you’re an active member in good standing, you can now check out up to four books at a time by visiting our library in New York, and either return them in person, or mail them back when you’re done. There are no late fees!

Of course we know that when we lend out books, they don’t always come back exactly the same as when they left. Many of you know that I’m obsessed with readers’ marks in books. Not in a disapproving, punitive way–in fact, I love finding evidence of how readers loved these books, sometimes until they were falling apart. I think it shows how the book lived, its uses in the workshop or at home, and how people valued it.

For example, the first inscription in image 8 reads: “from B. Mellenhoff to Max, 3/13/44.” Benjamin Mellenhoff was President of the Horological Society in 1936-1937. Max Epstein was an instructor at the Bulova School and a frequent lecturer. In the second inscription you can see what happened 11 years later. Mrs. Max Epstein donated the book, “Modern Watch Repairing and Adjusting,” to the Horological Society in memory of her beloved husband in March 1955. She knew how much the Society meant to Max, and wanted his legacy to be the continued support of other watchmakers, in this case through the library collection.

Image 9 shows some other stamps and inscriptions in our books. Henry Fried, who wrote the message in cursive at the center top of the image, was an HSNY president in the 1940s and 50s who authored 14 books on watchmaking and taught in the New York City public schools. In a copy of his own book, “The Watch Repairer’s Manual” he insisted: “May this remain in circulation for a long time” (emphasis his). And it has! Readers can still access Fried’s book in our library in 2024, along with thousands of others, and will be able to continue to read it into its second century.

For some time between the 1960s and the 1990s, our books resided at the Bulova School in Queens, NY. When the school closed, HSNY member and former Trustee and Treasurer Charles Solomon rushed over with a van to save the books from being thrown out.

Solomon’s beautiful Riverside Memorial Chapel served as the Society’s meeting place from 1995 through 2016. Image 10 is a picture of the books that were stored in a closet at the chapel. You can see that in addition to the older books, a number of more recent volumes have joined, including a lot of Bulova technical manuals and material on repairing quartz watches.

Along with our other librarian, St John Karp, I’ve been reconstructing HSNY’s original library. We’ve found more than 100 books from the original lists so far. You can see some in the library in image 11, as well as in the header image of this article, with their original numbered labels on the spine. If you ever find a book with one of our stamps out in the wild, please let us know, because we’d love to know more about our history!

Since this article focused on HSNY’s original library, I won’t go into detail about everything that’s happened since Fortunat Mueller-Maerki donated his massive collection to HSNY a few years ago. We’ve grown into a world-class research library with reference services, open to the public, and we’ve helped everyone from watchmaking students to novelists to people researching family heirlooms. You can learn about the start of this new era in the first post I wrote for this site back in 2022, but so much has happened since then that I may have to write a Part Two of this article. As a librarian, I feel that I’m carrying on a practical, tangible legacy. I try to keep the knowledge in circulation, as Henry Fried would say–not just the physical books, but what they represent to watchmakers of the past and future.